Title: When Spring Breaks Through
Author: Otter
Date: October 21, 2003
Email: agentotter@earthlink.net
Rating: PG
Pairings: Jack/Daniel
Category: Angst, Drama, H/C (Emotional), Pre-Slash, Friendship, Futurefic
Season/Episode: Season 5
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Summary: "Tell me you're okay, and I'll pretend to believe you. Tell me any damn thing. I'll feel better to know that one of us is alright, because I still have dreams where you fall, and I can't catch you."
Notes: Kneel before my master Salieri, shol'va, or your death will be painful. Kree!
Disclaimer: If I had a Stargate, I would probably travel to a planet where all the men are beautiful and naked. If I owned the Stargate series, I would ensure that that beautiful cast would be more naked.
In hindsight, he probably should've seen the storm coming. When he'd crawled out of the uncomfortable hotel bed that morning, his knee had been aching fiercely with powerful throbs of pain that shot up into his hip and nested there, deep in the joint. It was a familiar sensation now, his own personal Doppler, but it wasn't an exact science. It wasn't yet winter, so he'd been expecting rain.
What he'd gotten instead was snow, great, fat flakes of it that whipped down in clusters and hit the roadway in drifts. It swirled in front of his headlights, blinding him to oncoming traffic, and already he could see that it was going to pile deeply enough to make the road impassible.
He squinted out the windshield at the frenzied, blinding flurries and wished for at least the thousandth time that he'd opted to fly instead of driving to Wyoming. It had been the restlessness that had swayed him, a compulsion to be in motion to anywhere; it had made him reluctant to deal with the crush of the airport and the mind-numbing boredom of a plane ride. The thought had made his stomach flip, so he'd put his bag in the trunk a couple days early, instead, filled up the gas tank and eased his way onto the freeways. Now, faced with the prospect of being stuck on a quiet roadway at night, mired in snow, he could definitely see the flaws in the plan.
The snow was so thick that he didn't see the lights until he was almost past them. He slowed sharply, and the tires slipped a little before finding traction again. He frowned; the car wasn't equipped for weather like this, and it'd been awhile since he'd driven in anything like this, either. Getting stuck wouldn't be his only problem if he stayed on the roadway. He slowed a little more, gently, and finally saw the faint patterns in the snow-covered road that indicated a driveway. He turned off the little two-lane highway and into a parking lot, slipping with a grateful sigh into what he guessed might be a parking space, near the far edge of the lone, squat little building. There were other cars in the lot already, most of them with a liberal covering of white that indicated that they'd been there since before the storm started. A large cluster of motorcycles stood near the door, huddled together like a pack of sled dogs. A pair of big rigs lurked around the corner, indistinct and imposing like alien monoliths, and he smiled faintly at the thought as he unfolded himself from the driver's seat.
His knee protested the movement, and he grimaced as he reached back inside the car to retrieve his cane. He didn't like using it, and sometimes he could get around without it for a few hours; he could even run short distances, if he had to, though he'd pay for it the next day. But the ground underfoot was treacherous, and the pain he was already feeling told him in no uncertain terms that today was not a day to act like a tough guy. He embraced the idea whole-heartedly, and went so far as to turn up the collar of his thick woolen pea coat before moving away from the car.
He could only see the faint outline of the building through the snow, and the red and blue burn of the neon "OPEN" sign hanging near the front door. He moved toward that little lighthouse at a slow but steady shuffle, telling himself that there was no hurry whatsoever. By the time he pushed his way through the door and into the shocking warmth of the diner, there was a fine dusting of snow clinging to his hair and shoulders, and his grip around the head of the cane was slick. He paused just inside the door, ruffling a hand over the short-cropped hair to brush the moisture away, wiping his palm against one jean-clad thigh to give him a better purchase on the cane.
It was fairly crowded inside, a sharp contrast to the nearly abandoned roadway outside. The group of bikers -- mostly older men, grizzled and lined but with smiles on their faces -- occupied three big tables on the far side of the dining room. There was a cluster of businessmen at tables near the door, gesticulating wildly and arguing over the state of the stock exchange, and the two men who undoubtedly drove the big rigs were seated side by side at the counter, talking softly. A middle-aged couple with a teenaged girl who could only be their daughter sat in a booth near the windows where the girl could stare balefully out into the storm and wish to be stuck anywhere else. Another group of men in one of the booths wore matching dark blue overcoats, and he pegged them with a glance as Air Force, no doubt from nearby Warrens Air Force Base. But he wasn't in the mood to trade war stories, and all of his were classified anyway; he looked away and offered up a smile to the waitress behind the counter.
She glanced up with practiced ease from the truckers' mugs, pouring steaming-hot coffee without even looking, and said, "Just take a seat anywhere, honey. Coffee?" He wondered whether all waitresses in all little diners were required to sport a Southern drawl.
"Please," he replied, gratefully. He gave the place another once-over, looking for a quiet booth. He would've liked to sidle up to the counter, maybe chat with the waitress and make small talk with the truckers, but stools were no good for the bum knee. The only free booths he could see were a too-large one next to the too-loud bikers, and a small two-seater affair behind the soldiers. He sighed, and opted for the smaller, somewhat quieter space, hobbling his way over -- the pain from his knee was spiking up toward his ribcage now -- and sinking with a sigh onto the padded seat, with his back to the soldiers. That left him facing the sullen teenager, so he looked down at the tabletop instead.
A mug slid into his line of sight, and just as suddenly there was coffee pouring into it, the steam drifting up toward his face, carrying the smell with it. He sighed his satisfaction and smiled up at the waitress, who beamed right back. He wondered if she was one of those people who was perpetually in a good mood, no matter what happened to them. He hated those people. She passed him a menu, too, and he barely glanced at it before ordering a tuna melt and fries, which apparently also pleased her, because she was still beaming, and she started singing an unfamiliar tune to herself as she strolled away toward the kitchen.
The door opened again to admit another traveler, but Daniel didn't look up. He could feel the bored teenager's eyes on him, interested and assessing, and he wished he could melt right into his seat to escape her scrutiny. He hunched his shoulders without even thinking about it, shifted his hips to deepen the slouch even further, and wished fervently that she'd find something else to look at. He wasn't good with stares anymore; not the curious kind or even the amorous kind and especially not the pitying kind. He was wondering how to deflect her attention without snarling at her when he realized that hers wasn't the only gaze he was feeling. Someone stood next to the table, just at the edge of his peripheral vision, and was peering down at him.
"Daniel," a familiar voice said.
Daniel looked up from his coffee. His knee twinged painfully. Jack O'Neill stared back at him.
"Jack," he replied, mildly. He was somewhat surprised to find himself not in any way panicking, but he supposed that maybe he was suffering from shock.
"Colonel?" said one of the officers at the next table, inquisitively. "Everything alright, sir?"
Jack waved a dismissive hand and didn't bother to reply, slipping instead into the seat opposite Daniel's. They looked at each other for long moment, taking in the differences and essential sameness in one another's faces, and then Jack said, "Hey."
"Hey," Daniel said. He looked down at his coffee again, using his fingertips to turn the mug in little ten-degree increments, as if he were cracking a safe.
"What brings you to Wyoming?"
Daniel shrugged, and couldn't make himself look up again. "Conference," he answered. "You?"
"Had some business at Warrens," Jack told him, in the tone of voice usually reserved for commenting on things like artifacts and naquadah. "It's ah... been awhile. How've you been?"
"Fine," Daniel said, reflexively. He couldn't see Jack's face, but he could practically hear the rolling of eyes. Jack reached out across the table to tap two fingers against the back of Daniel's hand. The mug stopped rotating.
"Would you look at me?" Jack said. The words in any other context might've sounded hostile, but from Jack to his long-lost friend, they were a soft supplication.
Daniel looked up. "Your friends are waiting for you," he said, releasing the mug long enough to jerk a thumb at the table behind him.
"They know where I am," Jack replied, with a little smile. "And I can only take so much hobnobbing, anyway." He leaned casually back, looking comfortable, catching Daniel's eyes again before they flickered once more toward the mug. "So... you don't call, you don't write. Your mother and I have been worried." Daniel let the joke fall flat into silence, but Jack was undeterred. "That's some storm out there. We could be here for hours," he pointed out. "Hours and hours. All night, maybe."
Daniel gave him a bland look, and tried to keep his hands from shaking. "So you're specializing in meteorology now."
O'Neill leaned back, but he didn't smile at the joke. "Funny," he said, though he clearly didn't think it was. "Come on, Daniel. What happened?"
"I don't know," Daniel said. The lie tasted like ash in his mouth.
Jack stared at him silently for a moment, and Daniel had high hopes that he'd give up and wander away, but the officer had a look about him like an ancient statue, an immovable object. Finally he said, "Carter told me you're in California now."
Daniel shrugged and peered out over the top of his glasses. "Yeah," he answered. "It's warmer there."
Jack made a little quiet 'ah' noise, and his eyes flickered down as if he could see Daniel's legs through the table. "How's the knee?"
Currently? Effectively mimicking the exact sensation of napalm. "Fine."
"Uh-huh," Jack said, agreeing in a way that wasn't any kind of agreement at all. "So what're you up to? You said you were at a conference?"
"Yeah," Daniel said. He wished Jack would go away and at the same time he wanted Jack to never, ever go away again. "It was a 'methods of education within the military' thing. I'm teaching at the Presidio."
Jack lifted an eyebrow and made an impressed noise. "Defense Language Institute?"
Daniel dipped his head just slightly in a shadow of a nod. "I had a few offers in the civilian sector, but General Hammond asked me to do this. They're teaching a new series of courses in a couple of rare languages." He didn't elaborate, with so many strangers around; he didn't need to.
Jack nodded knowingly, knitting his fingers together on the tabletop. "You know, in the Springs a few weeks back I ran into somebody I used to know."
Quirking an eyebrow at the complete lack of a segue, Daniel cautiously encouraged, "Oh?"
"I ran into him in a grocery store. I thought he looked really familiar, but I couldn't think of where I knew him from. He came over and said hello, clearly knew who I was, and I was just standing there thinking, 'This is someone I used to know, and now I can't even remember his name.' We made small talk and then I told him I had to run, but I didn't realize until two days later that he was one of my best friends from high school."
Daniel saw where this story was going, and tried to contain his grimace. "Happens to everybody," he said.
"No," Jack hissed, surprisingly vehement. "No, Daniel. Not you and me. It's not supposed to happen to us."
Daniel squirmed and looked back at his rapidly diminishing coffee, wishing he could apply the heat directly to his leg. "People change, Jack," he said, quietly. "They move on."
The scowl Jack had leveled at him didn't waver, but he mixed it with a dash of sarcasm, for flavor. "Have you, Daniel? Honestly. Tell me you've moved on. I'd love to hear it. Tell me you don't wake up screaming. Tell me you don't curse my name every time that knee of yours acts up. Tell me you aren't afraid anymore. Tell me you're okay, and I'll pretend to believe you. Tell me any damn thing. I'll feel better to know that one of us is alright, because I still have dreams where you fall, and I can't catch you."
By the time Jack fell silent again, Daniel was shivering a little despite the bulk of his wool coat. He'd drawn back against the booth and folded his arms around himself, and he didn't even look up when the waitress wordlessly slid the plate with his meal onto the table in front of him, then swiftly retreated. Daniel peered down at his plate, watched Jack steal a few fries, and said nothing. Jack didn't say anything either, but he didn't leave; he just sat, and stared, and seemed determined to wait until the linguist found a language to speak in.
"It sounded like wings," Daniel finally said. His voice was so low and wavering that Jack had to lean in over the table again just to hear him. "All those bare feet against stone, it sounded like a million birds all taking off together. But they couldn't fly, Jack. None of them could fly."
His voice broke over the last word, and his knee throbbed painfully, as if he were there again, dangling high above the gore-spattered rocks, staring down at the thing that had come out of the water for the buffet. He could almost feel Jack's hands, wrapped like iron round his calf and not letting go, even when he kicked and struggled and cursed, even when the knee popped and wrenched and the sheer overwhelming pain pushed aside the haze and he realized he'd run; dear god he'd broken and run from the bonfire with the rest of them, blissed out and driven toward the cliffs. He shuddered and sucked in a breath, and it still smelled like salt water and wood smoke; another, and the memory gave way to the aroma of coffee and grease.
"I know," was all Jack could say.
Daniel found himself smiling, a little, because that was a typically Spartan thing for Jack to say, and painfully true. He did know, and no one else did. "You saved my life," Daniel said. "But everything that my life was had to end, at the same time. I was off the team. I couldn't even join any of the archaeological expeditions. I was looking at life in an office. It was... difficult."
Jack frowned. "I wanted to be there for you. I tried--"
"And I didn't let you," Daniel interrupted. "My choice. You have to understand, Jack. You all got along without me. You went back into the field. You had stories that I hadn't been around for. You had private jokes that I wasn't in on. And none of you would talk to me about your problems, because you all figured I had enough of my own. We drifted apart. It wasn't your fault, or Sam's, or Teal'c's, or mine. It just happens. It's just the way things are."
Jack's frowned deepened. "You could've stayed," he pointed out. "It would've been easier, once your therapy was done and you were mobile again. You would've seen more of us. We would've all settled in. Things would've gone back to normal, relatively speaking, but you split as soon as you were able."
Daniel shifted again and picked up one of the sandwich halves from his plate, using his fingers to contain some of the cheese and tuna oozing from the edges. "It just seemed easier," he said, "to start a new life instead of clinging the old one until it shriveled and died. I like artifacts, Jack, but I didn't want to be one."
The cheese was cooling and greasy, but he hardly noticed. He was studiously not looking at Jack, and trying desperately to think of a way to escape the situation. It had hurt to leave, and more to know that he wouldn't seek out his former teammates again, but that ache wasn't nearly as bad as the prospect of seeing them every day and knowing he wasn't a part of them anymore. He'd never expected to have to deal with this, though; never planned to look Jack in the eye and want to tell him that the fear still twisted in Daniel's belly, thrashing like that thing in the water had, all tentacles and stingers and jagged teeth, just waiting for him to jump and destroy himself.
"Daniel?" Jack hesitated. "I don't want to be that guy you run into in the grocery store. I don't want to be the guy who crosses your mind one day and you think, 'Huh, I wonder what ever happened to him?' and then you go back to mowing your lawn and forget all about it."
Daniel's heart tripped painfully in his chest and then leapt into his throat, and he swallowed hard to try to put it back where it belonged. "You'd never be that guy to me, Jack," he answered. His voice was a pained whisper that hardly seemed to be coming from his mouth at all.
Jack was frowning and now he was the one staring down at the table, at a loss for words. There was silence at the table behind Daniel, and he had a suspicion that Jack's hard-ass reputation was officially out the window. He figured it would hardly do more damage to reach across the table and cover Jack's hand with his own, so he did. His fingers traced over the veins just under the skin, and then settled, light and trembling like dragonflies, with a fingertip on each bony knuckle.
"You asked me how the knee was," he said. "To tell you the truth, it aches in cold weather, and it burns sometimes for no good reason. Sometimes in the middle of the night I trace the scars with my fingers, and I think that maybe I ought to admit to myself that I'm in no shape to be running."
Jack looked up, peering into Daniel's eyes as if he expected to find some dark secret written in tiny, precise letters across the pupils. There were no words there, but he seemed to find what he was looking for, anyway.
"You're driving all the way back to Monterey?"
Daniel nodded.
"What would you say to some company?"
Daniel's smile started slow and stayed subtle, with a definite pleased undertone. "I'd like that," he said. "I'd like that a lot."
-- the end --
Author: Otter
Date: October 21, 2003
Email: agentotter@earthlink.net
Rating: PG
Pairings: Jack/Daniel
Category: Angst, Drama, H/C (Emotional), Pre-Slash, Friendship, Futurefic
Season/Episode: Season 5
Spoilers: None
Warnings: None
Summary: "Tell me you're okay, and I'll pretend to believe you. Tell me any damn thing. I'll feel better to know that one of us is alright, because I still have dreams where you fall, and I can't catch you."
Notes: Kneel before my master Salieri, shol'va, or your death will be painful. Kree!
Disclaimer: If I had a Stargate, I would probably travel to a planet where all the men are beautiful and naked. If I owned the Stargate series, I would ensure that that beautiful cast would be more naked.
In hindsight, he probably should've seen the storm coming. When he'd crawled out of the uncomfortable hotel bed that morning, his knee had been aching fiercely with powerful throbs of pain that shot up into his hip and nested there, deep in the joint. It was a familiar sensation now, his own personal Doppler, but it wasn't an exact science. It wasn't yet winter, so he'd been expecting rain.
What he'd gotten instead was snow, great, fat flakes of it that whipped down in clusters and hit the roadway in drifts. It swirled in front of his headlights, blinding him to oncoming traffic, and already he could see that it was going to pile deeply enough to make the road impassible.
He squinted out the windshield at the frenzied, blinding flurries and wished for at least the thousandth time that he'd opted to fly instead of driving to Wyoming. It had been the restlessness that had swayed him, a compulsion to be in motion to anywhere; it had made him reluctant to deal with the crush of the airport and the mind-numbing boredom of a plane ride. The thought had made his stomach flip, so he'd put his bag in the trunk a couple days early, instead, filled up the gas tank and eased his way onto the freeways. Now, faced with the prospect of being stuck on a quiet roadway at night, mired in snow, he could definitely see the flaws in the plan.
The snow was so thick that he didn't see the lights until he was almost past them. He slowed sharply, and the tires slipped a little before finding traction again. He frowned; the car wasn't equipped for weather like this, and it'd been awhile since he'd driven in anything like this, either. Getting stuck wouldn't be his only problem if he stayed on the roadway. He slowed a little more, gently, and finally saw the faint patterns in the snow-covered road that indicated a driveway. He turned off the little two-lane highway and into a parking lot, slipping with a grateful sigh into what he guessed might be a parking space, near the far edge of the lone, squat little building. There were other cars in the lot already, most of them with a liberal covering of white that indicated that they'd been there since before the storm started. A large cluster of motorcycles stood near the door, huddled together like a pack of sled dogs. A pair of big rigs lurked around the corner, indistinct and imposing like alien monoliths, and he smiled faintly at the thought as he unfolded himself from the driver's seat.
His knee protested the movement, and he grimaced as he reached back inside the car to retrieve his cane. He didn't like using it, and sometimes he could get around without it for a few hours; he could even run short distances, if he had to, though he'd pay for it the next day. But the ground underfoot was treacherous, and the pain he was already feeling told him in no uncertain terms that today was not a day to act like a tough guy. He embraced the idea whole-heartedly, and went so far as to turn up the collar of his thick woolen pea coat before moving away from the car.
He could only see the faint outline of the building through the snow, and the red and blue burn of the neon "OPEN" sign hanging near the front door. He moved toward that little lighthouse at a slow but steady shuffle, telling himself that there was no hurry whatsoever. By the time he pushed his way through the door and into the shocking warmth of the diner, there was a fine dusting of snow clinging to his hair and shoulders, and his grip around the head of the cane was slick. He paused just inside the door, ruffling a hand over the short-cropped hair to brush the moisture away, wiping his palm against one jean-clad thigh to give him a better purchase on the cane.
It was fairly crowded inside, a sharp contrast to the nearly abandoned roadway outside. The group of bikers -- mostly older men, grizzled and lined but with smiles on their faces -- occupied three big tables on the far side of the dining room. There was a cluster of businessmen at tables near the door, gesticulating wildly and arguing over the state of the stock exchange, and the two men who undoubtedly drove the big rigs were seated side by side at the counter, talking softly. A middle-aged couple with a teenaged girl who could only be their daughter sat in a booth near the windows where the girl could stare balefully out into the storm and wish to be stuck anywhere else. Another group of men in one of the booths wore matching dark blue overcoats, and he pegged them with a glance as Air Force, no doubt from nearby Warrens Air Force Base. But he wasn't in the mood to trade war stories, and all of his were classified anyway; he looked away and offered up a smile to the waitress behind the counter.
She glanced up with practiced ease from the truckers' mugs, pouring steaming-hot coffee without even looking, and said, "Just take a seat anywhere, honey. Coffee?" He wondered whether all waitresses in all little diners were required to sport a Southern drawl.
"Please," he replied, gratefully. He gave the place another once-over, looking for a quiet booth. He would've liked to sidle up to the counter, maybe chat with the waitress and make small talk with the truckers, but stools were no good for the bum knee. The only free booths he could see were a too-large one next to the too-loud bikers, and a small two-seater affair behind the soldiers. He sighed, and opted for the smaller, somewhat quieter space, hobbling his way over -- the pain from his knee was spiking up toward his ribcage now -- and sinking with a sigh onto the padded seat, with his back to the soldiers. That left him facing the sullen teenager, so he looked down at the tabletop instead.
A mug slid into his line of sight, and just as suddenly there was coffee pouring into it, the steam drifting up toward his face, carrying the smell with it. He sighed his satisfaction and smiled up at the waitress, who beamed right back. He wondered if she was one of those people who was perpetually in a good mood, no matter what happened to them. He hated those people. She passed him a menu, too, and he barely glanced at it before ordering a tuna melt and fries, which apparently also pleased her, because she was still beaming, and she started singing an unfamiliar tune to herself as she strolled away toward the kitchen.
The door opened again to admit another traveler, but Daniel didn't look up. He could feel the bored teenager's eyes on him, interested and assessing, and he wished he could melt right into his seat to escape her scrutiny. He hunched his shoulders without even thinking about it, shifted his hips to deepen the slouch even further, and wished fervently that she'd find something else to look at. He wasn't good with stares anymore; not the curious kind or even the amorous kind and especially not the pitying kind. He was wondering how to deflect her attention without snarling at her when he realized that hers wasn't the only gaze he was feeling. Someone stood next to the table, just at the edge of his peripheral vision, and was peering down at him.
"Daniel," a familiar voice said.
Daniel looked up from his coffee. His knee twinged painfully. Jack O'Neill stared back at him.
"Jack," he replied, mildly. He was somewhat surprised to find himself not in any way panicking, but he supposed that maybe he was suffering from shock.
"Colonel?" said one of the officers at the next table, inquisitively. "Everything alright, sir?"
Jack waved a dismissive hand and didn't bother to reply, slipping instead into the seat opposite Daniel's. They looked at each other for long moment, taking in the differences and essential sameness in one another's faces, and then Jack said, "Hey."
"Hey," Daniel said. He looked down at his coffee again, using his fingertips to turn the mug in little ten-degree increments, as if he were cracking a safe.
"What brings you to Wyoming?"
Daniel shrugged, and couldn't make himself look up again. "Conference," he answered. "You?"
"Had some business at Warrens," Jack told him, in the tone of voice usually reserved for commenting on things like artifacts and naquadah. "It's ah... been awhile. How've you been?"
"Fine," Daniel said, reflexively. He couldn't see Jack's face, but he could practically hear the rolling of eyes. Jack reached out across the table to tap two fingers against the back of Daniel's hand. The mug stopped rotating.
"Would you look at me?" Jack said. The words in any other context might've sounded hostile, but from Jack to his long-lost friend, they were a soft supplication.
Daniel looked up. "Your friends are waiting for you," he said, releasing the mug long enough to jerk a thumb at the table behind him.
"They know where I am," Jack replied, with a little smile. "And I can only take so much hobnobbing, anyway." He leaned casually back, looking comfortable, catching Daniel's eyes again before they flickered once more toward the mug. "So... you don't call, you don't write. Your mother and I have been worried." Daniel let the joke fall flat into silence, but Jack was undeterred. "That's some storm out there. We could be here for hours," he pointed out. "Hours and hours. All night, maybe."
Daniel gave him a bland look, and tried to keep his hands from shaking. "So you're specializing in meteorology now."
O'Neill leaned back, but he didn't smile at the joke. "Funny," he said, though he clearly didn't think it was. "Come on, Daniel. What happened?"
"I don't know," Daniel said. The lie tasted like ash in his mouth.
Jack stared at him silently for a moment, and Daniel had high hopes that he'd give up and wander away, but the officer had a look about him like an ancient statue, an immovable object. Finally he said, "Carter told me you're in California now."
Daniel shrugged and peered out over the top of his glasses. "Yeah," he answered. "It's warmer there."
Jack made a little quiet 'ah' noise, and his eyes flickered down as if he could see Daniel's legs through the table. "How's the knee?"
Currently? Effectively mimicking the exact sensation of napalm. "Fine."
"Uh-huh," Jack said, agreeing in a way that wasn't any kind of agreement at all. "So what're you up to? You said you were at a conference?"
"Yeah," Daniel said. He wished Jack would go away and at the same time he wanted Jack to never, ever go away again. "It was a 'methods of education within the military' thing. I'm teaching at the Presidio."
Jack lifted an eyebrow and made an impressed noise. "Defense Language Institute?"
Daniel dipped his head just slightly in a shadow of a nod. "I had a few offers in the civilian sector, but General Hammond asked me to do this. They're teaching a new series of courses in a couple of rare languages." He didn't elaborate, with so many strangers around; he didn't need to.
Jack nodded knowingly, knitting his fingers together on the tabletop. "You know, in the Springs a few weeks back I ran into somebody I used to know."
Quirking an eyebrow at the complete lack of a segue, Daniel cautiously encouraged, "Oh?"
"I ran into him in a grocery store. I thought he looked really familiar, but I couldn't think of where I knew him from. He came over and said hello, clearly knew who I was, and I was just standing there thinking, 'This is someone I used to know, and now I can't even remember his name.' We made small talk and then I told him I had to run, but I didn't realize until two days later that he was one of my best friends from high school."
Daniel saw where this story was going, and tried to contain his grimace. "Happens to everybody," he said.
"No," Jack hissed, surprisingly vehement. "No, Daniel. Not you and me. It's not supposed to happen to us."
Daniel squirmed and looked back at his rapidly diminishing coffee, wishing he could apply the heat directly to his leg. "People change, Jack," he said, quietly. "They move on."
The scowl Jack had leveled at him didn't waver, but he mixed it with a dash of sarcasm, for flavor. "Have you, Daniel? Honestly. Tell me you've moved on. I'd love to hear it. Tell me you don't wake up screaming. Tell me you don't curse my name every time that knee of yours acts up. Tell me you aren't afraid anymore. Tell me you're okay, and I'll pretend to believe you. Tell me any damn thing. I'll feel better to know that one of us is alright, because I still have dreams where you fall, and I can't catch you."
By the time Jack fell silent again, Daniel was shivering a little despite the bulk of his wool coat. He'd drawn back against the booth and folded his arms around himself, and he didn't even look up when the waitress wordlessly slid the plate with his meal onto the table in front of him, then swiftly retreated. Daniel peered down at his plate, watched Jack steal a few fries, and said nothing. Jack didn't say anything either, but he didn't leave; he just sat, and stared, and seemed determined to wait until the linguist found a language to speak in.
"It sounded like wings," Daniel finally said. His voice was so low and wavering that Jack had to lean in over the table again just to hear him. "All those bare feet against stone, it sounded like a million birds all taking off together. But they couldn't fly, Jack. None of them could fly."
His voice broke over the last word, and his knee throbbed painfully, as if he were there again, dangling high above the gore-spattered rocks, staring down at the thing that had come out of the water for the buffet. He could almost feel Jack's hands, wrapped like iron round his calf and not letting go, even when he kicked and struggled and cursed, even when the knee popped and wrenched and the sheer overwhelming pain pushed aside the haze and he realized he'd run; dear god he'd broken and run from the bonfire with the rest of them, blissed out and driven toward the cliffs. He shuddered and sucked in a breath, and it still smelled like salt water and wood smoke; another, and the memory gave way to the aroma of coffee and grease.
"I know," was all Jack could say.
Daniel found himself smiling, a little, because that was a typically Spartan thing for Jack to say, and painfully true. He did know, and no one else did. "You saved my life," Daniel said. "But everything that my life was had to end, at the same time. I was off the team. I couldn't even join any of the archaeological expeditions. I was looking at life in an office. It was... difficult."
Jack frowned. "I wanted to be there for you. I tried--"
"And I didn't let you," Daniel interrupted. "My choice. You have to understand, Jack. You all got along without me. You went back into the field. You had stories that I hadn't been around for. You had private jokes that I wasn't in on. And none of you would talk to me about your problems, because you all figured I had enough of my own. We drifted apart. It wasn't your fault, or Sam's, or Teal'c's, or mine. It just happens. It's just the way things are."
Jack's frowned deepened. "You could've stayed," he pointed out. "It would've been easier, once your therapy was done and you were mobile again. You would've seen more of us. We would've all settled in. Things would've gone back to normal, relatively speaking, but you split as soon as you were able."
Daniel shifted again and picked up one of the sandwich halves from his plate, using his fingers to contain some of the cheese and tuna oozing from the edges. "It just seemed easier," he said, "to start a new life instead of clinging the old one until it shriveled and died. I like artifacts, Jack, but I didn't want to be one."
The cheese was cooling and greasy, but he hardly noticed. He was studiously not looking at Jack, and trying desperately to think of a way to escape the situation. It had hurt to leave, and more to know that he wouldn't seek out his former teammates again, but that ache wasn't nearly as bad as the prospect of seeing them every day and knowing he wasn't a part of them anymore. He'd never expected to have to deal with this, though; never planned to look Jack in the eye and want to tell him that the fear still twisted in Daniel's belly, thrashing like that thing in the water had, all tentacles and stingers and jagged teeth, just waiting for him to jump and destroy himself.
"Daniel?" Jack hesitated. "I don't want to be that guy you run into in the grocery store. I don't want to be the guy who crosses your mind one day and you think, 'Huh, I wonder what ever happened to him?' and then you go back to mowing your lawn and forget all about it."
Daniel's heart tripped painfully in his chest and then leapt into his throat, and he swallowed hard to try to put it back where it belonged. "You'd never be that guy to me, Jack," he answered. His voice was a pained whisper that hardly seemed to be coming from his mouth at all.
Jack was frowning and now he was the one staring down at the table, at a loss for words. There was silence at the table behind Daniel, and he had a suspicion that Jack's hard-ass reputation was officially out the window. He figured it would hardly do more damage to reach across the table and cover Jack's hand with his own, so he did. His fingers traced over the veins just under the skin, and then settled, light and trembling like dragonflies, with a fingertip on each bony knuckle.
"You asked me how the knee was," he said. "To tell you the truth, it aches in cold weather, and it burns sometimes for no good reason. Sometimes in the middle of the night I trace the scars with my fingers, and I think that maybe I ought to admit to myself that I'm in no shape to be running."
Jack looked up, peering into Daniel's eyes as if he expected to find some dark secret written in tiny, precise letters across the pupils. There were no words there, but he seemed to find what he was looking for, anyway.
"You're driving all the way back to Monterey?"
Daniel nodded.
"What would you say to some company?"
Daniel's smile started slow and stayed subtle, with a definite pleased undertone. "I'd like that," he said. "I'd like that a lot."
-- the end --